Two Weeks

10:20 AM on May 1, 2005. My mom died at 10:20 AM on April 17, 2005. It’s been 2 weeks. Or 14 days. Or 336 hours. Or 20,160 minutes. Or 1,209,600 seconds. Or what feels like eternity.

I went to the cemetery this afternoon. I just stood over her grave, still in a state of disbelief. Hard to believe that my mom is really six feet under me. Hard to believe that she is really gone. Hard to believe that she is never coming back. Sometimes it is scary. Truly scary. I think I am the only one who has been at her grave so far. The flowers I leave her just pile up one by one…

We had to finish cleaning her things out of the house today. All her personal things are now out. Only some furniture remains. I stood in the basement cleaning out her files, desk, and paperwork. Came across her big plans for the business that she had started about 10 months before she found out she had cancer. It was tough. Hard to throw away her dreams. Made me sick to my stomach. She went too soon as far as I am concerned. She went before she had to chance to make her dreams come true. She went before she did all the things she hoped to do. She went when she was really just getting started in again in life. She went too soon. Hard to accept it when it seems so wrong. Wrong.

So now her world is packed in bags, boxes, bins or in the garbage. Her things are divided up between my sister’s house and a storage shed. Soon my apartment will be added to the list of new homes for her things. Day by day her physical possessions will be divided up and sent on to other locations. The evidence that she was even here slowly disappears. Despite the fact that I am compelled to save everything that belonged to her, I feel like I am missing things. With each passing day I feel like I am losing her more and more. Every day I suffer a little death. I panic that I won’t remember things. I panic that I won’t remember stories, events or parts of her. I panic. The harder I try to remember the more I seem to forget. Then I panic even more. It is a vicious downward spiral. I am told to relax and it will be fine. It is hard to relax when you are being told to relax. It is hard to relax when you are hurt. It is hard to relax when you feel yourself slipping away.

Today at Coborns I ran into a person I have known for years. She had just heard about my mom’s death an hour or so before our bumping into each other when she was at Wal-Mart. She was beyond horrified. I was in shock. Two weeks later and there are people who still don’t know. My world stopped at 10:20 AM, April 17, 2005. I feel that everyone’s world should have stopped. Selfish of me? Beyond a shadow of a doubt. True nonetheless? Very. I know life goes on. Everyone tells me it does. And to some degree they are telling the truth. I get up, I go about my day, and I go to bed. Life goes on. But no one ever really says just how much it is different. My whole world is different. I feel different. I think different. I act different. I sleep different. My relationships are different. My world is different. Everything is different. It is hard for people to understand…see…their worlds never stopped when mine did. I now have a before and after. There is a strange bond between those who also have a before and after. Until it happens to you, you simply will never understand it. Until someone you truly loved deeply and closely and was a part of you dies, you will not have a before and after. Death changes everything. Before and after. Now I get it. Unfortunately.

I hate going to the store. Everything is about Mothers Day. All the signs and posters say…”Get a special gift for the mother you love.” “Make your mother’s day a joyous one.” “Let your mother know just how special she is and how much you love her.” Just a reminder that I don’t have a mother here anymore. This is the first Mother’s Day that I won’t be buying a card or a gift or spending the day with her. This is the first Mother’s Day that I won’t be able to tell her that I love her.

7,734 people in my hometown. Everyone knows everyone. It is impossible to get in and out of the grocery store without a huge hassle. A lot of people know my mom is gone and want to talk about it. What was it like? Who was there? What happened? Was she in pain? Was she coherent? Was she acting strange? Was she on a lot of medications. The questions really are endless. These are things I really don’t care to go into while standing in the middle of produce. People just don’t get it. Or even worse…the ones who know me and clearly have no idea that my mom has died…they stand there and make stupid remarks about how terrible their life is because they are so busy and their back hurts and it is cold outside and and and and…blah, blah, blah. Poor them. How will they ever make it through their day? Poor them. I wish that those were my only troubles. I wish those were the only troubles for my family. I wish… I don’t tell them she is gone. I figure the ones who truly care know by now. If not…someone else can tell them. They can read it in the paper. They can hear it at the grapevine at work. Or they can find out over at Wal-Mart.

Still trying to figure out how to deal with it all. Still having nightmares. Still sleeping with the light on.